EXCERPTS
8/31 - 9/3/00. Various locations. Star Wars notepad.

Pack, work (after last-minute call to arrange cat-sitter), stop at home briefly after work before driving all night to KC, arrive around 3:30, drop car at Jason's, breakfast, airport, 6am flight. Jason gives me cool mix tape, talks of my good fortune (in relationship) and his (band taking off pretty well now)... comp tape is intended to capture the feel of some positive events following long stretches of negatives. We agree it's a Rob Gordon-esque tendency in both of us to communicate those feelings this way -- instead of expressing our happiness for each other's good fortune with Actual Conversation...

Sleep thru both flights. Groggily call sister from airport, get overpriced rental car -- good thing it's not a stick, that would be hard to drive without the arm & leg it's costing me. Brought plenty of cassettes for use on this trip. Too bad the car only has a CD player. Stuck on detour and getting tired, sleep for about 45 minutes at a rest area. Reach Steubenville at 5:45 and can't bear to drive another 30 mins to PGH without music. Hit the mall -- "whatever you're looking for, we've got an empty storefront where they used to sell it" -- and manage to find Dismemberment Plan CD that I heard in KC this summer, plus new John Wesley Harding...

Drover's is a blast. Good group, mostly folks I worked with way back when, but a few I didn't know before. Somehow stay awake long enough to follow Thom & Carolyn back to suburban Pittsburgh...

Wake up at 12:45 following afternoon. Mocked relentlessly for this. Needed the rest, don't care. Thankfully I'm awoken in the middle of an annoying Work Dream...

My 11-year-old niece doesn't recognize me when I arrive at their house on Sunday. I soon realize it's because I'm clean-shaven, and I'd had the beard longer than she has been alive...